Not knowing anything.

Think back to a time, my dear readers, when you struggled a bit because you didn't know basic things. I'm not talking about things like how to fill in a tax return, or how to get the dvd player to work (for some of us, myself included, these things still elude us to this day), I am talking about not knowing things that you just SHOULD know. Like, for instance, remember when you didnt know that seven sevens were forty nine, or that the blue bits in blue cheese are actually mould, or that picking your nose doesn't make your head cave in. It seems like most adults pass that point, of not knowing simple and obvious things, when they are teenagers.
In the world of Medicine, however, you are reduced to a child every time you start a new rotation.
I know, for example, a very good friend of mine, who is in her 20s and is a graduate with a first class degree in biomedical science, who the other day, almost followed her consultant to the toilet. I have also almost done this, the awkward part for me is that he is a man, and everyone knows that women and urinals don't work very well together. Its because we trail around after them, in and out of meetings, up and down corridors, trying to be inconspicuous so they don't ask us hard questions, but also trying not to lose them in a hospital full of other doctors and other trailing students. Its like a massive duck pond with many ducks and a hell of a lot of ducklings.. And you're never in the right place when they need you, and you're always there when they don't want you...you cannot win. Eyes roll when you waddle on to the ward and everyone clears the way for the consultant, and when eventually the last child (as my consultant calls us) drags themself past, dragging a satchel and a coat behind them, you see people wondering if he just forgot to drop us off at school on the way to work.

I have just started doing a neurology placement and it feels like I don't know anything..My consultant will say things like 'note the bilateral foot drop', and I will duly note it (it looks like you're trying to walk with two dead legs, y'know, when your feet are all numb and floppy) and then after he will say...'So what did you think about their eye movements?' and I'll have been so busy thinking about foot drop I haven't thought about anything else! Neurology is an art and I absolutely love it, and its also exceptionally difficult so saying I don't know anything is like saying a nursery school class would fail an astrophysics degree. Because, I guess to a certain extent, medical school is just nursery for doctors. We do a lot of looking at pictures, and being confused about things. Sometimes we cry because we're tired or frustrated, and we're very messy..we quite often cover ourselves in fake blood from the skills lab, or, indeed some of us still haven't gained the appropriate motor skills to eat our lunches without getting them down our fronts (thank the lord for scrubs, Sam). I know I certainly am grumpy in the mornings because its early, and grumpy in the evenings because it's late.

Slowly, slowly I am learning the very basics. I hate blue cheese, and I know its not the end of the world if I pick my nose. I know my 7 times table although after that I'm not such a fan. I also am starting to pick up neuro and I absolutely love it. A nursery school child would never come home and say, 'Mum, guess what? Today I diagnosed Parkinson's Disease'. Well, I would hope not anyway.